<p>PARIS — French children, parents and teachers are battling with internet connection problems across the country after an abrupt nationwide switch to online learning saturated networks and embarrassed the government.</p>
<p>Paris prosecutors opened an investigation Wednesday into possible hacking into key systems, and the government’s cybersecurity agency is also investigating. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer announced cyberattacks on a state distance-learning network and blamed overwhelmed private networks and servers for other glitches.</p>
<p>But frustrated parents are blaming bad planning by the government.</p>
<p>After more than seven months of in-person class, the switch on Tuesday to all-online learning for all of France’s 12 million pupils was plagued with problems. Some were solved by Wednesday, but the Education Ministry announced a second day of cyberattacks on the state-run distance learning network, and acknowledged erratic and slow connections in multiple regions.</p>
<p>For Esther Baumad of Open Digital Education, a leading online teaching platform, the reason was simple: “There were too many people connected at the same time,” she told broadcaster France-Info.</p>
<p>Parents shared advice on class WhatsApp chats and vented on social networks. Teachers muddled through with smaller-than-usual classes because some children couldn’t log on to their networks, or had to cancel classes altogether.</p>
<p>“I know it’s not easy,” President Emmanuel Macron said while taking part in an online history and geography class for 14-year-olds in southern France on Tuesday. He acknowledged some “difficulties, some incidents.” </p>
<p>Sitting at his laptop in the presidential palace, Macron watched a lesson on World War II, and thanked the students, teachers and families for adapting to the rapidly developing situation.</p>
<p>His government sent all children <a href="https://apnews.com/article/e4a3bf724c92f96814e43103fb0807c5">back to school full-time in September to reduce learning gaps</a> exposed during virus lockdowns last spring, and to allow parents to get back to work. As a result, most French schools did not undertake major changes to adapt to remote learning like many did in the U.S., where a new survey released Wednesday by the Biden administration found just <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-us-news-race-and-ethnicity-coronavirus-pandemic-e4d47c469e5bbd96868766771064f620?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Wednesday_Morning_Wire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers">34% of students nationwide were learning full-time in the classroom.</a></p>
<p>After months of insisting that French schools wouldn’t close again, the French government was forced to backtrack last week amid a new virus surge fueled by a more contagious variant first identified in Britain. Macron ordered schools and non-essential businesses to shut nationwide and imposed new travel restrictions for four weeks.</p>
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<a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-medics-coronavirus-surge-ae16bdeb42363ab5f9f0dacebcaaf2d8">France’s already stretched hospitals </a> are struggling with the numbers of new virus patients. The country has reported among the highest number of virus-related deaths in the world, at 97,273.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, France is trying to speed up vaccinations after a slow start. Seven military hospitals started vaccinating civilians this week and a major vaccination center opened at the national sports stadium north of Paris.</p>
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